Thank you Prof Kenny, but ...

THE EDITOR: I make reference to Professor Kenny’s response to mine, published recently in Newsday. First I should like to admit my error in referring to the reptiles and birds as phyla.  They are, of course, only classes of the sub-phylum Vertebrata of the Phylum Chordata.  And I am truly grateful to Professor Kenny for the refresher course in animal classification.  I should like to apologise to the public for having misled them in such an important matter. I also thank the good professor for broadening my knowledge of the reproductive niceties of the Phylum (Sub-phylum?) Onychophora, and that there are two species in Trinidad and Tobago.
 
Are these both members of the Genus Peripatus?  Up till this I had only known of one species, but for the life of me I cannot remember its specific name.  I am sure that Professor Kenny can also enlighten me on this intriguing matter. Also, I truly did not know that the velvet worms had a placenta.  Are we talking here of an analogous structure, not a homologous one?  This too needs elucidation. However, in my defence, I did not think that these matters, obviously very weighty in their own right, had anything to do with my argument that the abortion-promoters were attempting to negate the evolutionary success of mammalian reproduction.  Apparently Professor Kenny did not think so either, as he did not even address this, which was the whole point of my letter. My argument stands.

By the way, Professor Kenny also indicts me for referring to the reproductive improvements in mammals as the “evolutionary climax”, on the grounds that evolution is a “continuing process”. Evolution might very well be that, but in this present era of the earth’s history it is the climax, though I concede it might one day be superceded. Yet can we presume that?   Had they been able to think, I’m sure the horseshoe crabs might have figured they would develop further, but for 425 million years they have been waiting in vain!  Amongst the vertebrates, ask the crocodiles how long they have been waiting! (Approximately 150 million years, I think).  Evolution seems already to have come to an end for a large number of extant species.  What of man? Finally, the fulminations of Professor Kenny’s last paragraph are an entirely gratuitous attack on what he seems to consider misguided (Catholic?) Church domination.  This is possibly an indication of where Professor Kenny is coming from.  I should advise him to be careful, for prejudice could cloud (has clouded?) his scientific judgment.

GERRY FARFAN
Port-of-Spain